CETA

On 15th February the European Parliament has tabled the plenary vote for MEPs on CETA – the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada. CETA still contains the climate-threatening ICS/ISDS text, which would give both Canadian and US oil and fracking firms the power to challenge and undermine any climate legislation that might reduce their future profits (such as any reinstatement of the Fuel Quality Directive’s distinction against higher carbon intensity fuels such as from Canada’s tar sands).

Please write to your MEPs to vote against CETA because it undermines the Paris Agreement on climate change by giving such legal powers to fossil fuel and other TNCs. It protects the investor, but lacks any legal “teeth” to protect the environment. On the ICS/ISDS you could refer to this online pdf: ‘The strong case against separate corporate court systems (ICS/ISDS)’ which is reached with this link: www.bit.ly/ICSISDS This pdf states “We can’t let big US oil and fracking firms have an ICS/ISDS in CETA to undermine climate legislation.” and contains the quote: “Chevron argues that the mere existence of ISDS is important as it acts as a deterrent.” (EU Commission official about a meeting with Chevron on ISDS, 29th April 2014). And it’s not just the ICS/ISDS text that’s a threat: for example big business requests have been included in CETA text such as on “regulatory cooperation”, as this new report shows: https://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/attachments/ceo_regulatory_cooperation_06.1.pdf Also EU’s precautionary principle is diluted.

The crucial “swing voters” (in a broad sense) on CETA will be the MEPs in the S&D group (Social & Democrat) – who call themselves “Progressives” and include UK’s Labour MEPs. Though UK public citizens and citizens-groups have persuaded most Labour MEPs such as Julie Ward MEP (NW England) against CETA, many S&D MEPs in other EU countries may follow their leaders by rubber-stamping CETA without adequate scrutiny – unless persuaded otherwise. So please ask Labour MEPs to persuade their S&D allies against CETA. S&D MEPs are voting on S&D’s final position on Monday, 6th February – apparently the vote is on a knife-edge.

You would think that the “progressives” would agree with the opinion against CETA by the MEPs’ Committee on Employment and Social Affairs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/henryadams/32497745535/in/datetaken-public/lightbox/ But many such “moderate” politicians seem to have a “herd” instinct and may presume an EU trade agreement with an ally to be a good thing, and there is a moo’d (excuse the pun) amongst many MEPs to rush through CETA before the EU loses another so-called “trade deal”.

Appendix

Update on Canada’s tar sands industry re CETA: EU climate legislation in the Fuel Quality Directive has already been diluted to ineffectiveness when it was “traded away” like a “bargaining chip” during the negotiation of TTIP and CETA. The FQD’s climate legislation originally aimed to reduce incentives for importing the more carbon-intense oil products from sources such as the tar sands. Other limits to tar sands expansion via export have also been removed: Both Trump and Trudeau have OK’d the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and Trudeau has OK’d other tar sands pipelines too, and the expansion of the tar sands industry, thereby making his signing of the Paris Agreement a pretence. The implementation of CETA and its ICS-ISDS would make it hard to halt expansion of the tar sands by regulatory means. More on the tar sands implications here: http://www.dragonfly1.plus.com/#blog for recent news, and www.dragonfly1.plus.com for tar sands intro.